Federer, Nadal and Djokovic pander to plutocrats and charge huge appearance fees. The "trickle down effect" means that tournaments like the Heineken Open now have to pay appearance money for racketeers that many of us have never heard of. It's close to extortion.

Quote:

At the end of Federer's first round match at the Australian Open a fawning interviewer asked about his kids and if he had bought coach Stefan Edberg a birthday present - no, by the way, the privilege of knocking up with 'King Roger' was enough of a present apparently.

With the amount of tennis Berdych played this weekend (and will still play Stan tomorrow) + a quite tough draw, I say he will not win this event. Hope Monfils or Davydenko make the final from that half instead.